


A Touching Sentiment

by Pinnithin



Category: Mission to Zyxx (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Trauma, c-53 has unhealthy coping mechanisms and pleck doesnt know if its a droid thing or a trauma thing, catch pleck on the infoweb looking up if droids can get ptsd, touch starved idiots comfort each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24939121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinnithin/pseuds/Pinnithin
Summary: “Oh,” Pleck said. Then realization dawned. “Oh! So you have like, PTSD or something?”“I-” C-53 gave him a surprised look. “I wouldn’t… say that exactly, no. The psyche of a droid doesn’t really follow the same chemistry that tellurian brains do.”“But that’s like, basically what it is,” Pleck contended. “Like the restraining bolt traumatized you.”“Sure,” C-53 allowed. “If that helps you understand it.”Pleck agrees to help C-53 get comfortable with physical contact again post restraining bolt removal. It's totally a casual agreement between friends, nothing weird going on here. Takes place in Season 2.
Relationships: C-53/Pleck Decksetter
Comments: 14
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

Pleck was amazed that his eye didn’t hurt more after the k’hekk laid an egg in it. He could, surprisingly, still see out of it, though his brain was struggling to reconcile the size disparity. Walking back onto Bargie, he kept tracking his eyes back and forth, feeling the foreign pressure roll around in its socket as he looked around the room. It was sore. He wasn’t sure he was a fan of what just happened to him. 

They gave Nermut the rundown of the incident, wrapping up another mission that, honestly, could have been a success  _ or _ a failure, depending on how he looked at it. Right now he was looking at it with a too-big eyeball, so things leaned closer to the “failure” side. A step up from their previous track record with the Federated Alliance, at least.

Their manager signed off and Dar trundled away to clean the ion cannon, leaving Pleck and C-53 alone in front of the darkened holo screen. He turned an optimistic smile toward him, hoping it would offset the fact that they were still covered in flecks of space bug guts. 

“Well, that could have gone a lot worse, right?” he asked, reaching to give the droid a congenial pat on the shoulder.

C-53 flinched away from his touch like it was a hot brand. Pleck, startled, withdrew his hand quickly.

“Shit, sorry,” he said immediately. “I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s quite alright, Emissary Decksetter,” C-53 intoned.

His voice was even, but the expression on his face looked startled. Pleck was still getting used to how well this frame could emote. Apparently, C-53 had access to a whole suite of facial variations, and while he kept a cool neutral most of the time, he occasionally caught Pleck off guard with an amused smile or an acidic side-eye. He often wondered how much control the droid had over his own face.

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

C-53 shook his shoulders out, a very organic gesture for an AI, Pleck noted. “Yes, I’m fine,” he said.

He flicked Pleck a look. His scanners were shaped like tellurian eyes, but still distinctly synthetic, with a dark sclera and astonishing blue irises that glowed softly in dim light. “Something in my coding just didn’t react well to that.”

Pleck still had his hand up, palm out, cautiously. “Oh, okay. Yeah. Sure. So does that mean I shouldn’t touch you, or..?”

C-53 looked like he was puzzling something out in his cube. “No, I,” he began slowly, “I should be able to experience contact without a problem, considering the frame I’m in.” He gestured up-and-down at his own body.

It took Pleck a couple beats to follow, before he nodded with a quiet, “right.”

It often slipped his mind that the C series were originally built as sex droids. He had only known C-53 to house a vast knowledge of protocol and diplomatic exchange; Pleck found it difficult to categorize him as anything other than that, but he couldn’t deny that his most recent frame definitely kept that original functionality in mind.

“Wait, but you were like, totally fine a few hours ago,” he pointed out. “When you had me touch your arm, remember?”

Pleck could still feel his first contact with the droid’s synthetic skin against his fingertips. That had been an… educational encounter.

C-53 nodded pensively. “That is true. Hm.” He took a step closer to Pleck so that he was within reach again. “Try doing the same thing you just did. I’m curious.”

“What, touch you?”

“Yes.”

He was hesitant. “It’s not gonna hurt you, right?”

C-53 angled his head thoughtfully. “It didn’t necessarily hurt me just now, it simply…” Pleck could the sound of his processors working as he paused. “...felt wrong, somehow. Like it was  _ supposed _ to hurt me.”

Pleck raised his eyebrows, still doubtful, and his left eye throbbed with a dull pain. Rodd, this k’hekk egg was going to get annoying.

“Okay, so,” he asked, “same place?”

“Yes, same place.”

With some caution, he reached out and grasped the droid’s shoulder with his hand. It was a casual touch, he thought, a friendly gesture between coworkers.

At first, C-53’s expression was one of curious expectancy, but after a few seconds of contact, he pulled away with a shiver. His face was perplexed and somewhat disturbed. 

“Okay, I’m not gonna-” Pleck dropped his hand back to his side. “That clearly made you uncomfortable, C-53.”

Carefully, C-53 composed himself, straightening back to his full height. “It’s the strangest thing,” the droid murmured, examining his own gray hand. “I keep expecting that to hurt, but it doesn’t. It feels pretty good to experience contact, actually. It’s been a long while. But…”

He trailed off, continuing to stare at his own digits vacantly.

“Look, I won’t do it again if it bothers you,” Pleck said, not exactly tracking, but wanting to be respectful of his friend’s boundaries. He jammed his hands in his jacket pockets.

“It  _ shouldn’t _ bother me, is the thing,” C-53 went on. He angled his gaze at Pleck again, the light from his eyes reflecting off the darkened holo screen. “It’s like - hm, what’s a metaphor you would understand...” he considered for a moment, then decided on one. “Say there’s something mundane that you enjoy doing, like eating a sandwich.”

“Okay,” Pleck said, “I like sandwiches.”

“I know,” C-53 acknowledged, briefly allowing him a smile before continuing. “Say you spend your whole life able to eat sandwiches uninhibited. Nothing ever stops you from enjoying them.”

“Uh huh.”

“Then let’s say someone puts a collar on you. This collar shocks you every time you eat a sandwich. And say you are forced to wear it for, oh, seven, eight months? You eventually learn to avoid eating sandwiches to keep from getting shocked”

Pleck frowned. “Sounds bad.”

“Yeah. It is. So then... let’s say suddenly this collar is taken off, and you’re back to your regular life of being able to eat sandwiches without consequence again,” the droid explained. “Except you can’t, because the reflex of expecting a shock is still there. There’s still that fear, even if it’s irrational now that the collar is gone.”

“Huh,” Pleck murmured, peering at his colleague curiously.

“That’s how it feels being touched right now.”

“Oh,” Pleck said. Then realization dawned. “Oh! So you have like, PTSD or something?”

“I-” C-53 gave him a surprised look. “I wouldn’t… say that exactly, no. The psyche of a droid doesn’t really follow the same chemistry that tellurian brains do.”

“But that’s like, basically what it is,” Pleck contended. “Like the restraining bolt traumatized you.”

“Sure,” C-53 allowed. “If that helps you understand it.” His scanners studied Pleck with interest. “How do _ you _ know about that?”

The tellurian shrugged. “I mean, I did grow up in a civil war,” he said. “I never, y’know, saw any action, I was just a kid, but a neighbor of mine always had trouble with like, Dependent’s Day fireworks and stuff. Y’know, after they served. The war kind of,” he paused, trying to put it gently, “stayed with them?”

“Hm.”

Pleck didn’t want to pry, but his curiosity eventually got the best of him. “So, when you were restrained you weren’t allowed to touch people?”

The droid’s expression sharpened out of its thoughtful fog. “In a sense. I wasn’t allowed to really want anything that didn’t align with Federated Alliance protocol.”

“What about like, handshakes and stuff?”

“If it was necessary and appropriate for diplomatic relations, it wasn’t a problem,” he said. 

“But you didn’t have skin back then,” Pleck added, leaning an elbow on the back of their shitty Rebellion issued couch. “So now you can actually like, feel everything all of a sudden.”

C-53 fixed him with an affirmative look. “I am very sensitive now, yes.”

Pleck swallowed in the face of such intense eye contact. He kept asking questions to distract himself from it. “What about if you’re touching yourself?”

The droid’s brows shot up.

“Not like-” Pleck flushed, laughing nervously. "I didn’t mean it like  _ that _ , I just thought, if you were to just-” he mimed touching his own forearm with his opposite hand. “Do you still get that weird feeling?”

“No, that’s a little different.”

“So it’s just when other people touch you.”

“Precisely.”

“Huh.”

They lapsed into silence. Pleck couldn’t imagine what it was like, going so long without any physical contact, only to have the sensation restored all at once. It would mess with his head, too, if it had happened to him. He suddenly felt guilty for suggesting the option of removing C-53’s skin.

“Do you,” Pleck ventured, “d’you  _ want _ to let people touch you?”

“It would certainly make missions easier if I didn’t have a flinch response to it,” C-53 responded matter-of-factly.

“No but like,” Pleck gestured vaguely as he leaned bodily against the couch. “Is that something  _ you _ want? Like, personally.”

His colleague faltered as the machinery inside him spun. “I… yeah, I do want that.” he said finally. “Not only for convenience, but just because, ah, well.” He looked away. “It feels nice,” he murmured.

Pleck studied his expression with interest. C-53 seemed almost embarrassed, with the way his brows were drawn and his gaze was averted. It was a sight Pleck wasn’t exactly used to, and he broke the silence to alleviate some of the anxiety on his friend’s face.

“Well, okay, I’ll help you, then.”

“You don’t have to do that, Emissary Decksetter,” C-53 replied, shooting Pleck a skeptical look.

“It’s okay, I get it. We can work on it,” he assured him. “You know tellurians will get like, seriously messed up if no one touches them for a really long time, right?” Pleck asked. He offered a shrug, as if the conversation was no big deal, but his pulse was climbing as he began to think about the logistics of this proposition.

“I’m aware. Your species... really has a lot of flaws,” the droid commented.

“I wouldn’t call it a  _ flaw _ -”

“You suffer from immense psychological damage from lack of contact,” C-53 insisted. “Are you sure  _ you’re _ okay, Emissary Decksetter?”

It gave Pleck pause, but only for a second, before he laughed it off. “I’m fine, don’t worry. You’re always helping me,” he reasoned. “Now it’s my turn to help you.”

C-53 did not seem to enjoy that idea. Pleck himself didn’t have much reassurance to offer, being stared down by a droid who seemingly knew everything. He finally raised an arm and scratched at the back of his head.

“I’m gonna…” He gestured vaguely, though he was unsure of where he was going to go.

“Yeah,” C-53 agreed, looking just as awkward.

They parted ways, headed quickly in opposite directions. Pleck found himself wandering through a utility hallway in Bargie, and an impulse from his oversized eye drew him to stare at the wiring inside as he thought.

So he had just agreed to that. Pleck had to admit he hadn’t really thought the proposition through when he offered it. He felt bad for his coworker, though, and he genuinely wanted to help him become more comfortable in his skin - whether that skin was manufactured or not. 

C-53 was always so unshakably confident, and that look of unease on his face troubled him. Pleck wanted to do what he could to make that unease go away. And yeah, sure, Pleck himself missed physical contact, too. If the mutual touching benefitted both of them, what was the harm?

He rubbed a knuckle against his damaged eye, watching the starbursts of light bloom behind his eyelid as he did so. He should really check this thing out up close in a mirror and see if he could do anything about it. That would, at least, give him something to focus on other than the lingering feeling of C-53’s skin on his palms.

This was fine. It was going to be fine. Pleck shook out his hands and tried not to think about it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go as planned, of course, until they don't.

It was weird, okay? It was weird at first. 

Standing beside C-53 on some backwater planet, waiting for Bargie to come pick them up, and making a deliberate effort to briefly squeeze his elbow. Walking through the common area, crossing paths with the droid, and brushing shoulders with him as he passed. Giving him a firm, but friendly pat on the back at the end of a mission well done. 

Pleck was always sure to make eye contact with C-53, to raise his eyebrows and dip his chin in a noverbal “may I?” before initiating touch. He made sure to keep it light and brief so as not to overwhelm. He stuck to areas he knew were safe - forearms, shoulders, upper back. He even tried to reserve the contact between them only when they were alone, to spare his friend’s dignity. Seeing how embarrassed he was to need help from Pleck, of all people.

C-53 shied away from his touch anyway. Every time. Despite how careful he was. It went against every instinct Pleck had to keep up the contact when he knew there was  _ something _ inside C-53 telling him it was going to hurt. Pleck didn’t want to hurt C-53. That was the last thing he wanted out of their relationship, but his friend insisted they continue, and over the days and weeks that followed, Pleck gradually began to see him relax.

The flinches settled down to starts, then to shudders, then to a barely perceptible shake. Pleck noticed himself relaxing into the arrangement, as well. His own prompt to touch the droid evolved from a conscious action to a reflex, until the touching actually felt natural to him. He even realized he had grown used to C-53’s synthetic skin - what he had once considered clammy and tacky was now a cool relief, constant and assuring.

This was a ritual that they had crafted together, just the two of them, that only they knew the rules to. It felt strangely intimate to Pleck, and over time he found every nerve in his body chanting  _ more, more, closer, closer  _ when they were near each other. It was with great effort that he held himself back. He had to remember that this was all for C-53’s benefit, not his own.

He was reminding himself of this very thing when Pleck drifted into the kitchenette in search of a snack. His colleague was already there, leaning his frame against the counter with his arms crossed and his scanners idly tracking whatever was playing on the holo screen across the room. Pleck smiled in greeting as he passed him to get to the fridge, pausing to skim his hand across his elbow as he had done so many times prior. When he broke contact to continue with his task, however, C-53 caught Pleck’s wrist and pulled him back toward him. 

“Wh - hey, C-53?”

“Emissary Decksetter, I can’t do this anymore,” his friend interrupted him.

Pleck’s pulse was on the upswing immediately. “Do what?” he asked. Had he accidentally transgressed a boundary in some way?

C-53’s digits were still locked tightly around his wrist, though he had no intent to pull away. “All of these… little things,” he explained. “I understand you’ve been doing it this way to keep me from being overstimulated, and I appreciate it, I really do, but…” servos whirred as he paused. “Lately it hasn’t been enough.”

Pleck struggled to parse the droid’s meaning. “O-Okay,” he began. “We can, uh. D’you want t-”

C-53 yanked him forward so they stood chest-to-chest, then pitched them both to the side and pinned Pleck bodily with his back to the counter. Pleck felt himself go hot from ear to collarbones at the sudden closeness, and he blushed even deeper when the music in the frame’s pelvis sounded off. He reached quickly for the killswitch and pressed it.

In the following seconds of silence, his brain ran through a marathon of possibilities as they stood like that. C-53 was staring him down intently, gaze a little sharper, eyes a little brighter than normal. Pleck could hear a deep humming coming from the droid’s chest and faintly registered a subtle vibration accompanying it. He didn’t dare move. He could hardly breathe.

Time stretched between them until Pleck finally found it in himself to speak. 

“C-53, what’s-” he tried not to focus on the blood pounding in his ears. “What is going on right now?”

“I…” C-53’s keen expression cleared like a nebulous cloud lifting. He quickly released his tellurian crewmate and took a generous step away, placing a good arm’s length of distance between them. “I don’t know.”

Pleck’s eyes were still locked with his scanners, unsure of what to say. His chest rose and fell heavily now that there wasn’t a droid frame pinning him in place, but he remained rooted to the spot.

“I’m terribly sorry, Emissary Decksetter,” C-53 said. “I’m not quite sure what just came over me.”

Pleck’s voice quavered slightly as he spoke, despite his efforts to keep his tone even. “It’s okay, C-53,” he replied. “I just - I just wasn’t expecting you to, uh,” nerves forced a laugh out of him. “You were really close to me just now.”

C-53’s face became difficult to track as it flicked through about eight different emotions in rapid succession. Pleck watched him, fascinated, as he processed through a response. 

“It’s possible I may have overstepped a little.”

“I mean-” Pleck began haltingly. He wasn’t  _ wrong _ , but… “It didn’t like - it didn’t _ bother _ me. I was just sort of surprised is all.” He was still watching C-53 carefully, and noticed that his frame was trembling ever so slightly. “Are you okay?”

“I am quite alright,” he assured.

“You’re shaking.”

C-53 looked away. “I’m aware,” he said.

The holo screen in the background flickered indifferently. Pleck stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited.

“I guess I am walking a very fine line right now,” C-53 explained finally, “between wanting to touch you and being repulsed by the idea of it.”

“Okay,” Pleck said, wondering if he should feel offended, but unable to find it in himself. “Sure. Well, what do you want me to do, then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Like, do you want to stop with the touching?” he elaborated. “How can I help you, I guess, is what I’m asking.”

C-53’s voice went scathingly dry. “Can you edit my code and delete my multiple physical contact commands?”

Pleck faltered. “Uh…”

His friend shook his head dismissively. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m still… figuring this out.”

“It’s okay,” Pleck repeated.

His heart rate had begun to return to normal, to his relief, but C-53 still looked uncharacteristically lost where he stood in the kitchenette. He made an attempt to ground him in the best way he knew how - by asking dumb questions.

“So did your programming make you do that just now, or?”

“I think,” C-53 thought for a moment, “the desire was my own, but my programming made me take it too far.”

“Okay, so that was like a touch thing, not a sex thing, right?”

There was a long pause as C-53 studied him before he uttered a single, perfunctory syllable. “Right.”

“You’re not, y’know, attracted to me or anything?”

C-53’s expression sharpened to something cool and clinical. “Absolutely not.”

He was beginning to look more like himself, and it made a relieved laugh come skipping out of Pleck.

“Okay, just making sure.” He rubbed a knuckle habitually against his oversized eye. “Well, we can keep working on it. The - the touching thing, I mean. Maybe we need to get you more used to initiating.”

“That seems to be the next logical step,” C-53 intoned.

“We don’t want you just grabbing someone randomly like that on a mission,” Pleck went on, voice still laced with laughter.

“No,” the droid agreed, a small smile crossing his mouth. “That wouldn’t be ideal.” He paused to give him a grateful look. “Thank you, Emissary Decksetter,” he said. “For being so understanding about all of this.”

The sincerity caught him off guard, but Pleck managed to wave C-53 off like it was no big deal. “Sure, no problem,” he answered brightly. “What are friends for, right?”

He wouldn’t know, personally. Pleck had never really had friends before. But if favors like these were a part of it all, he thought that maybe he could get used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all know Bargie immediately went "hey what the JUCK was that" after this happened. The boys think they're being slick but Bargie sees all and that's such a wild environmental aspect to keep in mind. 
> 
> Thank u for the comments they fuel me <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my god, these bitches gay! good for them!

Pleck learned very quickly that encouraging C-53 to touch him in public was not the best course of action. He wasn’t sure if it was an aspect of that specific frame or if it was a side effect of his recent trauma, but the droid’s first attempts at casual contact were far from casual. It was a strange role reversal they found themselves in, with Pleck becoming the party that nearly leapt out of his skin whenever C-53 grazed a hand over him.

The crew was bustling around the common area in preparation for a mission one early morning when he finally called it. Pleck was in the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee, when he suddenly felt a cool hand run the entire length of his spine. It made him shiver so hard his teeth chattered, and the hand holding the coffee pot jerked and sloshed hot liquid all over the counter.

“Shit,” he yelped, scurrying away from the droid in search of a towel.

To his credit, he was able to chalk up the spill to his own characteristic clumsiness, but he did make a point to pull his colleague aside after it happened.

“Listen, C-53,” Pleck said. He leaned his shoulder against the refrigerator in an attempt to be casual, even though his heart rate was still in an uptick. “Maybe we should take a different approach with this.”

C-53 raised his brows. “Is what we’re doing right now not working?” 

The obliviousness of his response was so out of character that Pleck had to stifle a laugh. “No, I don’t - I don’t really think this way is gonna do it.”

C-53’s cool blue gaze examined him passively. “I fail to see how my method is any different than yours.”

Pleck gaped at him. Did he really not notice how suggestive he was being? “Okay, look,” he explained. “This,” he raised a hand to tap his friend lightly on the elbow, “is not the same as this,” the gesture changed to a luxurious brush of his knuckles down the length of C-53’s arm.

The droid was barely able to suppress a shiver as Pleck dropped his hand. Combined with the brief way his ocular sensors glowed, it was fascinating to watch.

“Alright, yeah,” he conceded. “That may pose a problem.”

“A little,” Pleck chuckled. He rubbed the heel of his hand against the oversized eye in his socket. The k’hekk egg had stalled out in its growth, and he was becoming more and more used to its presence in his face. In fact, he was beginning to like it, despite the concerns expressed by his crewmates. “So maybe let’s - let’s uh-”

“Let’s just keep it to when we’re alone,” C-53 supplied. “Until I can figure a way to bypass some of these subroutines.”

“Sure. Sounds great,” Pleck answered, trying not to wonder about the specifics of the subroutines he mentioned. “Hey, uh.” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder in what he hoped was a nonchalant gesture, “how about we go do this mission, huh?”

C-53 seemed just as eager to end the conversation as he was. They both left the kitchen to catch up with Dar.

\---

‘Alone’ apparently meant deep in the cargo hold of the Bargarean Jade, after undergoing a thorough search for a lurking Beano. The place wasn’t very well organized, a product of the crew passing in and out to retrieve things and never putting them back where they belonged. Fluorescent lighting hummed dimly overhead, barely illuminating the mislabeled containers and haphazardly placed shelves. As Pleck picked through the boxes in search of the sentient bean, he happened upon a solid white rectangle laid out on the floor that brought an incredulous grin to his face.

“There’s been a mattress in here this whole time?” he laughed, bending down to clear the cardboard obscuring it.

Pleck still didn’t have a mattress in his own room due to a series of unfortunate events that he was beginning to suspect was targeted. He had since adjusted to sleeping without one, occasionally stealing naps on the couch when he really needed the rest, but the situation was far from ideal. Elated, he sat on the edge of the mattress and flopped backward with his arms straight out, luxuriating in the sweet bliss of good back support.

Faintly, he could hear the mechanical sound of C-53’s frame approaching. When he pulled into his line of sight, standing over him with arms crossed, Pleck offered him an excited smile. 

“C-53 can you believe this?” he asked, tucking his arms behind his head. “D’you think Bargie will let me take this back to my room?”

“I hardly think it’ll fit in your room, Emissary Decksetter.”

“Okay, but what if I like, folded it or something?”

“No,” C-53 was shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so.” He lowered his frame to sit on the mattress next to Pleck before he went on. “I think this was originally put in here for Beano, anyway.”

Pleck waved dismissively. “Like Beano ever even uses it,” he murmured.

He found himself staring at his coworker beside him, at the way he sat with a reserved poise, shoulders straight and tall, hands folded politely in his lap. He was elegant, truly, but he also looked uncomfortable. Pleck propped himself up on his elbows, taking the plunge into awkwardness first so C-53 didn’t have to.

“So how do you wanna do this?” he asked.

The droid flicked him a complicated look. “It would help if you weren’t lying down like that.”

“Oh, uh, sure.” Pleck heaved himself back to a seated position, and he could feel his spine practically crying to return to the softness of the mattress. Man, he really was missing out, sleeping on cardboard boxes like he had been.

He rested his elbows on his knees and his chin in one palm, looking at C-53 patiently.

After a moment of processing, his crewmate began carefully, “We’re doing this so I can get better at initiating touch,” he stated.

“Right.”

“And we’re in here by ourselves because this frame has some tendencies I can’t fully control yet.”

“Uh huh.”

C-53 gave Pleck a significant look. “You realize this is going to get a little weird, right?”

The tips of Pleck’s ears went pink when he thought about it, but he managed to pull off a nonchalant shrug. “I’m - I mean, it was already kind of weird, wasn’t it?” he answered. “And besides, this is to make  _ you _ comfortable, not me.”

The droid was staring at Pleck like he was a particularly infuriating puzzle. “I’d hate to cross a line,” he said finally.

“I think as long as you don’t go below my waist, it’ll be fine,” Pleck assured him. He paused, then added, “And please don’t like, tickle me or anything.”

A hiss sounded from C-53’s vocalizer that was almost a laugh. “I wasn’t planning on tickling you.”

“Good,” he said, flashing him a grin. “‘Cause I’m a screamer.”

The snort of mirth that followed was genuine, and it delighted Pleck to hear it. “You really need to be more careful about how you phrase things, Emissary Decksetter,” C-53 said, shaking his head.

The lights hummed indifferently in the silence that followed. Pleck waited, but C-53 remained ramrod straight beside him, servos whirring idly in his hesitance. They were straying into unknown territory, away from the safe certainty of their old tried and true ritual. C-53 had an apprehensive look on his face, as if he were standing on the edge of a sheer cliff and Pleck had asked him to jump.

“Okay, look,” Pleck broke in. “Let’s just start with something easy. If it makes you feel bad we can stop.” He held out his hand, palm up, in his colleague’s direction.

It did not take C-53 long to connect the dots. With great trepidation, he placed his hand in Pleck’s lacing their fingers lightly together. His skin was smooth and cool, his digits a reassuring weight. Pleck chanced a glance at C-53, who was pointedly not meeting his eyes.

“This is nice, right?” he offered.

C-53 made a discontented noise. “You say that as if you  _ want _ to be doing this.”

Pleck’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement as he tried to follow. “I…  _ do _ want to be doing this,” he insisted.

“You would have me believe that you’re putting yourself in all these awkward situations with me,” C-53 said, narrowing his scanners at him, “not out of obligation, but because you genuinely want to?”

Confusion forced a weak laugh out of Pleck. “Well, I mean, yeah,” he replied. It was obvious to him, and he wondered how C-53 failed to see it. “You’re my friend and I want to help you.”

It wasn’t often Pleck was able to help with anything, and if a few moments of mild discomfort on his part helped C-53 overcome whatever the Federated Alliance did to him, he’d endure it without hesitation. The protocol droid mattered a great deal to Pleck. He squeezed his hand in reassurance. 

“How’s your frame handling this?” he prompted gently.

C-53’s gaze had dropped to where their fingers interlaced between them, expression pensive as the machinery inside him worked it out.

“I can do this,” he decided. “This is safe.”

Pleck practically glowed at the declaration. This was safe. He was safe. This was a safe thing for C-53. Pleck recalled those months prior, when he’d cradled the droid’s fragile consciousness in his hands after his frame had been destroyed. _ I’ll keep you safe _ , he had told him.  _ You’re safe with me _ . To this day, the sentiment was truer than ever. 

\---

This became their new ritual. Moments stolen away between rebellion excursions and team debriefs and restless nights alone. They would sit side by side, hand in hand, until whatever was making that low hum in C-53’s chest died down. Sometimes they spoke, other times they were both too roadweary to say anything.

Pleck cherished every minute of it. Every chance he got to brush his thumb over C-53’s knuckles, he took. He could sense how much restraint the droid was showing, evident by the subtle shake in his fingertips whenever they were close. Pleck wondered what was going on in the cube that housed his consciousness, how much of his processing power was spent keeping himself from overstepping again. It felt like a moot point by now, when Pleck wanted the same thing, to be closer, closer, every nerve ending firing off when they touched. 

One evening, when they were both quiet and exhausted from a particularly stressful mission, Pleck finally went for it. He settled in next to C-53, pressing in close, so they were touching from shoulder to knee on the edge of the mattress.

His crewmate stiffened immediately.

“Emissary Decksetter, are you sure this is-” C-53 began at the same time Pleck blurted, “is this okay?”

They both started, catching a glance between them, and shared a weary laugh.

“I was just checking,” Pleck chuckled, leaning his head on C-53’s shoulder. He saw no reason to deny his friend the contact he craved when he himself yearned after it. “Let me know if this is too much, okay?”

He felt C-53 slowly relax against him. It was good, being this close, fingers interlaced, listening to the comforting hum of the machinery under his ear.

Pleck was incredibly fond of him. There was always something about C-53 that delighted and intrigued him, from the moment he first met him back in the Federated Alliance. The refined, confident poise that initially drew Pleck to him was only enhanced by restoring the droid’s ability to feel emotion, and every day that passed, Pleck learned something new about him. How he viewed the world. What made him tick.

He held onto every detail like they were secret gifts just for him. After all these moments spent alone together, Pleck was finding it increasingly difficult to attribute his enjoyment of their time to his own loneliness. There was just something about C-53 in particular that drew that joy to the surface.

“You doing okay, C-53?” he asked, words slipping out slow as he melted drowsily into him. 

“I’m doing… quite well, Emissary Decksetter,” C-53 replied. “Thank you for asking.” He sounded more relaxed than Pleck had ever heard him, and the lazy frequency his vocalizer took on was pleasant to his ears.

“You can just call me Pleck,” he murmured.

“Sorry?”

Pleck raised his head to gaze sleepily at his friend. “You don’t have to do the ‘Emissary Decksetter’ thing. It’s just us in here.”

C-53 returned his stare carefully. “Pleck,” he tried.

He did not expect hearing his own name to bring a blush to his cheeks, but here he was, grinning like a fool at the sound. “That’s not so bad, right?”

“It will take some getting used to,” C-53 reasoned.

Pleck lifted their hands, indicating their twined fingers. “You got used to this,” he pointed out.

C-53 didn’t laugh, but Pleck could hear the smile in his voice when he replied, “I suppose I did.”

Pleck began to fall asleep like that, hand in hand with his best friend, feeling warm and safe. As he drifted off, he allowed himself to think about the future where it glowed bright with gentle possibility. He hoped C-53 would remain by his side even then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this chapter with the intent to make it erotic and it turned into fluff. This is the cross I bear.
> 
> Thank you for the comments you all are so nice xo


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